Healthy Chicken Skin

It's a common proposition in Suicidefoodland—that hated, reeking realm—but one that drips with repugnance everywhere else:

Chickens take perverse pride in the healthy state of their skin, going so far as to hike up their feathers to show it off.

We are meant to think, "How like a woman she is, to raise her skirts, to tempt the onlooker with a glimpse of smooth and tender skin!"

Of course, of course, we can hardly claim surprise at the thought of a chicken pleased at an absence of cellulitis, but this is a virulent vanity. One can only surmise that the healthy skin, no less than the eye shadow and mascara, is valuable only insofar as it signals the chicken's desirability as an edible thing. It gives new and horrifying meaning to the term "sex object."

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral.)

Smokin' D'Heiniees BBQ

Now, we're fundamentally opposed to the barbekooks' frequent conflation of sex with violence. And we have nothing but disdain for their sexualizing of meat (a phrase we shudder even to type). And yet.

And yet there's something timid about this, as though the Smokin' D'Heiniees folks simply lost their nerve.

From the fresh-faced gilt's demure posture to her complete lack of erotic footwear, we're seeing a long string of missed opportunities.

Face it, the most transgressive element of the scene is the orthography. (H-e-i-n-i-e-e-s?)

If it weren't for the pig sitting atop the grill, waiting for her moment to finally experience the "adult" thrills life can offer, we could almost ignore the subtext and turn away from the muddled double entendre.

Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic: a "what the hell?" digression

Pardon us. It appears our brain has fallen out.

This product—this chill tonic—could scarcely have received a more suitable designation. Tasteless. And how!

Lay down your four bits (that's 50¢ in old-timey talk), grab a bottle for yourself, and see!

Drink it down and watch as you become… as fat… as a pig! (?) And as you metamorphose into an actual pig with a lace collar and receding hairline. (??) And acquire the affect of an elderly gentleman caught in mid-regression to his infancy. (???)

And just what does this, you know, mean, sociologically-speaking? That fat pigs are such symbols of happiness that we yearn to emulate them? That "food" animals are associated with rosy good health?

Who knows.

(Thanks to Dr. Benjamin for the referral.)

Addendum: Feel free to investigate the other posts in our "award-winning" (that is, non-award winning) series of "what the hell?" digressions: Dead Busty Turkey, Samsung Safari, and Cluck-n-Stuff.

BlackSmith Barbecue Shack

The steer is a throwback to a time when men bovines were men, and hard work was a virtue.

Young animals today, they think they can just wait around for someone to knock on the door and offer to kill them. That's not how the real world works!

You've got to wake up every morning with the attitude that you are going to get it done! You are going to make something (that is, food) of yourself! Take the bull by the horns, as they say. Or the pig by the ribs, or whatever gets your heart pumping.

The blacksmith learned his lessons well. He knows it's all up to him. He understands the joys of making something by hand, pounding the rack of ribs with a cleaver until you earn the gold watch, the number in your ear, and the electric prod that drives you to the bolt gun.

They're called values, kids.

(Thanks to Dr. Tofulish for the referral.)

Dave-Bob's BBQ & Such

We suppose Dave-Bob just forgot to include his little friend in the name of the business. They're obviously bosom buddies. They're so at-ease.

That's no random pig, corralled for a photo-op. These two obviously go way back. You can practically feel the warmth between them. We would have expected the establishment to be called Dave-Bob 'n' Waylon (or whoever).

It's a puzzle how his pal slipped his mind. It's almost as though—stick with us here—it's almost as though Dave-Bob doesn't see the pig as a peer. In spite of the arm slung around the pig's shoulder, could it be that Dave-Bob thinks of his friend as, well… As more of a commodity than a companion? We know, we know. It's tough to believe.

And could it be that the pig is satisfied with the arrangement? Naturally! He's filling the crucial role of "American Grassroots Food," after all! Heady stuff for a simple country pig!






Addendum: Dave-Bob?

Special Report: Pig Logo Exposé 9

Oh, why not? What's one more go-round on the carousel of barbecue-related tedium? Here it is: Pig Logo Exposé 9. Of course, after the last installment—the blockbuster that was exposé number eight—we don't know how much enthusiasm we can muster.






















































(From left to right, by row: Whale Belly BBQ, Red Red Swine BBQ Sauce, generic barbecue neon sign; "Bar-B-Q" Country, Cookin' With a Little Spit Q Crew, St. Catherines Rotary Rib Fest; J. B. Hog Roast, Adams Rib, Junior's Chicken & Ribs; unknown, Butt Whoop, generic "Hot Fresh BBQ" metal sign, Buck's BBQ.)

Whether bareheaded or in a chef's pristine toque, ball cap, or Country Gentleman-style straw hat, we know him. With or without the wheatstraw in his mouth, we know him. Guzzling beer or sipping wine, we know him.

We know him by his hooded eyes, his pride, his girth. But mostly by his overalls. And so shall he be called… Overalls. The latest stem cell from which a brood of barbecue mascots are cloned.







Addendum (7/03/10): The fourteenth appearance of Overalls.















Addendum 2 (1/10/11): And the fifteenth!














Addendum 3 (12/16/11): Here are the 16th (referred to us a while ago by Dr. Jen) and the 17th Overalls.

Grill Sergeant BBQ

Line up, line up, you sorry wastes of pork!

Well, well. What do we have here? This is the most pathetic pile of meat I've even seen.

What do you think you're doing here, standing next to my beloved grill?

You pantywaists make me puke! Think you deserve this grill? You're not fit for scrapple, you gristly numbnuts!

If it was up to me, you'd be right back on that bus and driven home to Mama! Who'd wanna eat you, anyway? Flavor? You don't know the meaning of the word, maggots!

Now, my boss tells me I gotta work with you pissants. So that's what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna ride you! I'll be on you every second of the day! You don't shit until I say "shit." Am I understood? Do I make myself clear?

If by some miracle any of you morons listen to me and learn something, one day you might—I said might—be good enough to die for your country!

Hi-i-Que

Albert Einstein, the world's favorite astrophysicist-cum-pitchman, is now called upon to sell pork.

This is only the latest example of the meat-movers' Pretense of Professionalism. To wit, human Albert Einstein plumbed the mysteries of the cosmos, seeing within them a mathematical elegance. If he had something to tell, it would have behooved us to listen. When his pig doppelgänger gets up there in front of the blackboard, hadn't we ought to listen as well?

Of course we should! The aura of the merely human Einstein reflects upon Pig Albert Einstein, conferring upon him authority and integrity. Which is, naturally, expressed by that arcane equation P=BB^Q, which we assume—with lunch starting to rise on us—can only mean Pig (or Pork) = Barbecue. And if we are startled to find a pig in a sweater vest equating himself with a foodstuff, we must remember: this is no ordinary pig. This pig is the preeminent physics theoretician of his generation. (May we please ignore the fact that Pig Albert Einstein is working in a hackneyed bit of sexual double entendre? It's out of character, and we're already having trouble with lunch.) If he says it, it is true. Q.E.D.







Addendum: Another example of the Pretense of Professionalism can be found here.

Addendum 2: Pig Albert Einstein is depicted as a left-hander, and Human Albert Einstein does in fact appear on many lists of famous left-handed people. But when then of this picture?! We ask you!

Maiklin's Barbecues

The simple joys of a job well done; some of us need nothing more than that.

These three chums, lingering forever in their bygone age, are suffused, replete, aglow with friendship and a calm that's twinned to duty. Not obligation, with its brash demands, its needy insistence! But duty, the beacon of service!

Duty, the first calling of the Friend.

It is within this heartfelt bond, shared one to the other, that the friends find themselves: the pig beneath the tines that will stab his smiling carcass, the cow before the carving knife, and the man, destined to be left behind. But they will wait for him! While he stabs and carves and serves their steaming meat to any take-out customers—the meat having been cooked over wood!—they will wait. Performing their eternal service, the Duty of the Dead, they will wait for their friend.

(Thanks to Dr. Ari for the referral. Original image source here.)

Nikol Baking Dish

In this grotesque parody of relaxed recreation, a dead chicken hot tubs her cares away. It's a theme we've seen many times before (here is a wonderful example)—the reinterpretation of ghastly extremes as commonplace situations.

This isn't a slaughtered bird cooking in boiling liquid. No, no, nothing of the sort!

It's a scene of sensual bliss, the headless and footless chicken unwinding after a hard day, soaking her tired muscles and soothing her plucked skin.

You can almost hear the spa attendant: Scalding broth? You're soaking in it.

Can you read the tagline at the bottom of the ad? "Treat your food to something good."

Dead animals never had it so easy!

Bobak's Sausage Company

Welcome back to the arcane world of athletic foodstuffs. Like the boxers and weightlifters before them, these international sausage competitors live in two different worlds.

In one, they are dedicated to the continual improvement of their physical forms, seeing in themselves the promise of potential realized. In the other—the one with which we are more familiar—they are dedicated to their own consumption.

And there, atop the grills, the two worlds join, becoming one warped world in which nothing will ever make sense again.

Italian Sausage made it to the top of the podium, German Sausage silvered, and Polish Sausage came in third. But you know what? For making it to the finish line and down into some guy's stomach, they're all winners!

(Thanks to Dr. Michelle for the referral.)






Addendum: Feeling as though you've seen something similar? Perhaps you have.